Press Your Luck
One of the most popular game shows of all time. Nick Jr. Characters answer questions to earn spins on the Big Board for a chance to win "Big Bucks"! However, there are evil Whammies lurking about. Each time one is hit, they will take away all of your accumulated winnings up to that point. Based on the Zenakeise version hosted by David Sparks and Fran Gauchi. Gameplay Question Round In the question rounds, Philippa asked four questions one at at time. On each question the first player to buzz in had a chance to answer. The answer he/she gave became the first of three answers for his/her two opponents to choose from. A correct buzz-in answer was worth three spins while a correct multiple choice answer was worth one spin. In the event a contestant who buzzed in first ran out of time, that contestant had to sit out the rest of the question while the other two players played the multiple choice part of the question. In the event that no contestant buzzed in when time ran out, all three contestants played the multiple choice part of the question. 20 spins were available in each question round, but the highest one contestant can earn was 12 spins (which was achieved on rare occasions). The Big Board When the question round was over, the contestant island turned around for the contestants to see the big Press Your Luck game board. The fonts used were Franklin Gothic Medium Cond for the cash, while Times New Roman Bold was used for "+ One Spin" and prizes. The board consisted of 18 squares with the show's logo in the center. On the board were thousands of points in cash & prizes and Whammies. The contents of every square rotated every second, as there were 3 slides in each square. In the first round the player with the fewest spins went first. The player with the most money at the end of round one played last in round two. There are alternatives when the Big Board rounds occur: *If there's a tie for the fewest spins, the player on the left goes first. *If there's a tie for the most spins or money (in Round 2), the player on the right plays last. *If all players end up with the same amount of money in the first round, the question round decides. The player who wins the most spins in the second question round gets to play last in Round 2. *If there's a tie for the least money in Round 2, the player with the fewest spins plays first; if there's a tie for spins and money, the player on the left plays first. The player in control of the board played as many of his/her spins as he/she liked. On each spin, lights around the game board's spaces flash around the board, and the contestant stopped the board by hitting his/her button and by yelling "STOP!" When the board stopped, if the contestant hit a dollar value it was added to his/her score; if he/she hit a prize, it was credited to that player and its value was added to his/her score and that prize would be replaced with a new prize. If at any time the contestant hit a Whammy, he/she lost all his/her money up to that point, and hitting four Whammies took that contestant out of the game. Upon hitting a Whammy, a short cartoon was presented in which the Whammy would mock the contestant and take away his/her money in many ways possible; sometimes the cartoon would show the Whammy being crushed, flattened, hurt or otherwise humiliated in different ways. Sometimes, the Whammy was accompanied by his girlfriend Tammy (or his dog Fang). On some animations, the whammy would imitate several famous people, including Liberace (he would play a piano until the chandelier above the whammy's head falls on him), Michael Jackson (dressed as the late pop star, glove and all, he would dance his famous Moonwalk to Jackson's hit "Billie Jean"), Boy George, lead singer of the band Culture Club (dressed in the singer's unusual attire, he would sing "Who Would Ever Hurt a Whammy?", a parody of the band's hit "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?", until a hammer suddenly appears and flattens him). After the cartoon, a Whammy card (accompanied by a "boing" sound) would pop up in front of the contestant. If a player Whammies out, his/her scoreboard is turned off and the remaining spins are discarded. In the first round, if a player has hit two Whammies, Philippa always reminded that player, "You want to be careful about picking up a third Whammy in Round 1." In addition to the cash & prizes, some of the cash squares on the board were paired up with extra spins (???/???? + ONE SPIN). Each time any of those kind of squares was hit, the player's spin total was frozen and the money attached to that spin square was added to his/her money total. At some point during a contestant's turn, if that contestant fears that he/she is about to run into the Whammy on the next spin and/or is tired of pressing his/her luck, that contestant would pass his/her spins to the player in the lead or if he/she is in the lead had to pass them to the second place player. And should both players have the same score, the passing player would decide who to pass the spins to. The player with the passed spins must take all the spins until he/she hit a Whammy (at which point the remaining passed spins would be transferred from the passed column to the earned column) or has run out of those spins, and each time the passed contestant hit money plus a spin, the spin just played was transferred to the earned column. During the final spin of the game, a player must do any of the following in order to win the game: *Avoid hitting a Whammy if he/she is in first place. *If the player is in second place, he/she can pass the last spin to first place and hopes they hit a Whammy. *If the player presses, they will have to land on a specific square that will give them enough money to win the game or any cash amount with a spin to stay alive, depending on the difference between the two scores. *If the player presses and they trail first place by 5000 or more, the only option is to stop on a square that gives them an additional spin to stay in the game (this helps if the spin was passed to 2nd place). Special Squares In addition to the cash (with & without a spin), prizes, and Whammies, there were other squares on the board that affected gameplay. *'Big Bucks': The most important square on the board always seen in square #12, which if hit, transferred that player to the highest amount on the board (always in square #4). **In the video game for the Wii, unfortunately, this guarantees a trip in Round 1 only. (Nevertheless) This inspired the catchphrase, "Big Bucks, No Whammies." *'Directional Spaces': Where the light around the square containing it would be moved to another square. **'Go Back/Advance Two Spaces: '''Where the light moved two squares away from it/them. **'Move One Space': The contestant had a choice between the two squares touching it. It's located on the top corner to the left in Round 1 and on the middle side to the right and toward the bottom left in Round 2. **'Pick A Corner': It always appeared in square #6 in round two. It worked like Move One Space except (true to its name) that the contestant had a choice between the contents of one of the three corners of the board. A Whammy can be one of the choices since it was in the top left hand corner square (#1) but was never chosen. The Whammy was later moved to square #18 swapping with 1400 (which was appropriate since it started out in square 1 to begin with). ***The color of Pick A Corner changed to dark green with white font, and fades as seasons of the show pass by. **'Across the Board': That space sent the light directly across from that square (to square #8). *'Double Your Money': Awards a cash prize equal to the player's current score, effectively doubling their money. **This was changed to "'Double Your Money + One Spin'". In both cases, the space can only be seen in round two and awarded once per game. Once collected, it is replaced by a regular prize. So in effect, this was a prize space. *'Add A One: So called because if it was hit, a one was added next to the point sign in that player's total (ex: 0 - 10, 2000 - 12 000). If a player has more than 10 000 before the space was hit, 10 000 was added to the contestant's total instead. *'''2000 Or Lose One Whammy: It was a possibly important square added to the board. So called because whenever it was hit, the contestant had a choice to either add 2000 to his/her money total or drop one of his/her Whammies. The latter choice was completely important, a godsend for contestants when they were in danger of whammying out of the game. Upon losing a Whammy, the appropriate Whammy card dropped back down into the contestant's desk. If the contestant did not have any Whammies when this was hit or if the player hits it on the final spin of the game, the 2000 must be taken. Winning the Game The player with the most money at the end of Round 2 won the game and kept all cash & prizes won. When a contestant won the game, all 18 squares on the game board flashed on and off in unison. If the game ended in a tie, the players who were tied won the game and kept their winnings. A player would also win the game if two contestants "Whammied out", and if the last player standing has not taken his/her spins, that player would play "against the house" by taking as many of his/her spins as he/she liked and stopped whenever he/she wanted, unless he/she also "Whammied out", in which case there would be 3 new players on the next show. More often than not, that player would choose to stop before exhausting all his/her spins. Championship players stayed on the show until they were defeated or exceeded the winnings limit of 25 000 (all winnings over 25 000 were kept). Champs retired after appearing five days or exceeding the new winnings limit of 50 000 (whichever came first). Trivia *Whammy poems sometimes appeared as Philippa cut to a commercial. The poem would appear on the screen, as would the name of the home viewer, along with his/her hometown (and if the home viewer was a child, his/her age was included, too). More often than not, the poems would appear after the first Big Board round ended. It would gradually fade from the screen as the camera zoomed in on the Press Your Luck logo. Philippa would also read poems at the end of the episode; however, she sometimes let a contestant read one. Philippa would then close the show and say, "Thanks for pressing your luck. Bye-bye." Music Robert Israel & Lee Ringuette Press Your Luck Introduction Theme Song Press Your Luck Closing Theme Song Whammy! Theme Song Whammy! The All New Press Your Luck Closing Theme Song Inventor Game created by Jan McCormack Show developed by Bill Carruthers Links Press Your Luck Homepage PressYourLuck.tv press-your-luck.com Press Your Luck Madness Rules for Press Your Luck @ Game Show Temple Xanfan's Old Press Your Luck Page Xanfan's New Press Your Luck Page Xanfan's Whammy Page Got Whammy? Download the Whammy! Game Control Josh Rebich's Press Your Luck Rule Sheet Josh Rebich's Whammy! Rule Sheet Rules for Press Your Luck and Whammy! at Loogslair.net Blog about the original PYL Flash game of Whammy! Official Pearson website for Press Your Luck via Internet Archive Category:Nick Jr. shows Category:Gambling Category:1991 premieres Category:1991 endings